West of Eden
In a break from my regular transmissions, I am in a tiny little Island, called Gili Trawangan, off the North coast of Lombok in Indonesia. Tonight, in a rather random turn of events, I have spent eating Sashimi, and watching the seaside restaurants and bars get flooded by bloody huge waves - the aftermath of an earlier earthquake and Tsunami off Sumatra.
Otherwise the place is about three footsteps from Eden; a tiny little place in azure seas, encircled by beaches, coral reefs and crystal, warm waters. The island itself is green - cars and motorbikes are banned, and transport is only by bike, or horse drawn carts. It's really low season (also storm season - once in a while the skies open and unload a few seas of water within an hour or so, with dramatic thunder, lightning and all the rest) - and though this place has a party reputation, apart from a few central bars it's empty. You have beaches and reefs all to yourself, and can while away the day chatting to super friendly natives as the only guest in a restaurant, bar or cafe.
It's quite idyllic, ridiculously cheap, and such a change from my last stop of Kuta in Bali. Though it was low season there too, that just means the touts are desperate to get any custom at all and NEVER. LET. UP. (- "No, I don't want it" - "YES, yes! You want?!?! You buy?!?!"). Still, it was a good centre from which to try activities, and I got to do some surfing (which I was oh SO VERY bad at), bungee jumping (far less scary than I had expected, but amazing fun - I ended up going three times: forwards, backwards, touching the water), and white water rafting (rather white knuckle with all the rain - the boat rolled on us and I rather hurt a finger. Luckily it doesn't seem to be broken, but it went some interesting colours and grew a lot...)
Otherwise the place is about three footsteps from Eden; a tiny little place in azure seas, encircled by beaches, coral reefs and crystal, warm waters. The island itself is green - cars and motorbikes are banned, and transport is only by bike, or horse drawn carts. It's really low season (also storm season - once in a while the skies open and unload a few seas of water within an hour or so, with dramatic thunder, lightning and all the rest) - and though this place has a party reputation, apart from a few central bars it's empty. You have beaches and reefs all to yourself, and can while away the day chatting to super friendly natives as the only guest in a restaurant, bar or cafe.
It's quite idyllic, ridiculously cheap, and such a change from my last stop of Kuta in Bali. Though it was low season there too, that just means the touts are desperate to get any custom at all and NEVER. LET. UP. (- "No, I don't want it" - "YES, yes! You want?!?! You buy?!?!"). Still, it was a good centre from which to try activities, and I got to do some surfing (which I was oh SO VERY bad at), bungee jumping (far less scary than I had expected, but amazing fun - I ended up going three times: forwards, backwards, touching the water), and white water rafting (rather white knuckle with all the rain - the boat rolled on us and I rather hurt a finger. Luckily it doesn't seem to be broken, but it went some interesting colours and grew a lot...)